Asia Pacific Water Stewardship Forum at Riversymposium

The 18th International Riversymposium, held from 21-24 September 2015 in Brisbane, celebrated another first: The Asia Pacific Water Stewardship Forum was held this year in conjunction with the symposium.

Practitioners from across the region gathered to update their knowledge and advance their understanding of water stewardship as well as share experiences with the application of the International Water Stewardship Standard developed by the Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS). This was the first time water stewardship practitioners have been brought together in a specific forum since the launch of the process to develop the International Water Stewardship Standard in 2010.

The full day program covered system-wide issues such as developments with verification and accreditation, assessing water stewardship impacts and building the value proposition for good water stewardship. The program examined sets of case studies on the application of water stewardship by processing industries and in agricultural situations. The forum concluded with a special session looking at priorities for further development of water stewardship in 2016.

Declan Hearne, Project Officer from the International WaterCentre (IWC) presented a case study from the Philippines where multiple stakeholders were brought together to develop and implement an integrated water conservation policy. The project fell short of building sufficient trust between different interest groups and creating support for shared actions that would both protect water sources and enable developments that are socially, ecologically and environmentally acceptable to different interest groups.

“Findings from the case study suggested that local actors from academia, government and civil society came together around a strong shared interest prioritising conservation over development, but this strong bond turned into an impenetrable barrier to actors who shared the same priorities”, he said.

For more information on the Asia Pacific Water Stewardship Forum, visit LinkedIn.